ABSTRACT
The information we acquire in daily life can come from many sources: direct observation, conversations with friends and acquaintances, movies and television, newspapers, and books. Some of this information is about unknown or fictitious people and events. In many cases, however, we already know a lot about the things that are described, and we spontaneously recognize the information as either true or false. When information is conveyed in pictures or is acquired through observation, we often form visual images and retain them in memory as part of our knowledge about their referents. However, verbal descriptions of events can stimulate the construction of visual images as well. Finally, the information we receive can often elicit affective reactions both at the time it is acquired and when we are later reminded of the events to which it refers, and these reactions can be used as a basis for evaluating the events and the people or objects involved in them. The information from all of these sources, and in all of these modalities, combines to form our accumulated knowledge about the world in which we live, and serves as a basis for our judgments and behavioral decisions.
